The European wasp also commonly known as German wasp, yellow jacket, and hornet, is found in the Northern Hemisphere (Europe, North Africa, Asia) and has been introduced to countries like Australia, New Zealand, and North/South America. It is considered a pest in introduced countries because it damages ecosystems, taking natural food sources from other insects, which affects birds, other insects, and it ousts native wasps from their natural habitats. They affect the biodiversity of any area they inhabit and in New Zealand it has affected the honeybee population. It makes the top 100(98) of the Global Invasive Species list.
They are an extreme nuisance to fruit-growers and the like, and to where food and drink are consumed, and to any outdoor activity because of their aggressive nature and that they can sting many times.
Their nests are capable of containing between several hundred and several thousand wasps. Each nest on average produces between 1 000 and 2 000 queens a season, and because they can travel a long distance to nest, they are a reoccurring problem even when all nests in the area are destroyed. In some regions, the wasps do not die off over winter so the potential problems to human activity are magnified.
Destroying the nest is the most effective way to control wasps but locating or accessing it can be difficult. Most nests are underground but they can be found anywhere there is shelter. E.g. cavity walls, tree trunks.
Because European Wasps are attracted to both sweets and meats, they are omnivores, and sometimes feed on these at different times, it has been difficult to find baits that work efficiently and don't attract other insects/animals when only a single bait attractant is used. E.g. bees/sugars. Besides lures that trap wasps physically in a container of some type, it is known that killing even a thousand wasps may make little difference as the queen is laying more eggs, the preferred methods have been; baiting by a toxicant with attractants for ingesting, the whole of the inhabitants of the nest need to consume, and this can be a large amount of bait. And secondly by lacing meat or some form of attractant with insecticide, that they carry on their body and food source, usually as a dust and this also can be a large amount of bait depending on the nest size. Both methods rely on the toxicant being a delayed toxicity or a lower level of concentration.
Typically, the ways of reducing a local wasp problem include either finding and destroying all nests in the area, or using poison bait. Manual destruction of nests over large areas of shrub land is likely to be difficult and labour intensive.
Poison baiting is widely used to control wasp populations as it has the advantage that foraging wasps carry the poison back to the nest, meaning it is unnecessary to locate nests or approach those that are very large or difficult to get close to.
However although most baits show some degree of attraction to wasps, bait attraction can vary between different sites and regions, weather conditions and within a population throughout the wasp flight season. This variation may be influenced by the presence of other food sources, nest requirements and behavioural traits. Protein rich foods and carbohydrates are generally attractive to foraging wasps, but relative attractiveness may vary throughout the season due to changing nest requirements. However there is currently no universal commercial bait for wasp control.
In New Zealand poison must be mixed with protein-based bait, as carbohydrate baits risk poisoning bees. However at certain times wasps are not greatly attracted to protein baits, which can cause poisoning operations to fail. Toxins such as 1080, sulfluramid and fipronil mixed with sardine cat food can be effective at controlling wasps. Fipronil is faster acting and equally toxic at concentrations 1000 times lower than sulfluramid. Fipronil was found to reduce colony activity of Vespula spp. by 99.7% in treated areas. In North West Patagonia (Argentina) it has been found that beef baited with fipronil reduced wasp densities by 80-100%. Further studies have found that the most attractive bait for V. Germanica was beef. Honey and corn syrup did not attract foraging wasps as effectively, even when mixed with beef. The only effective insecticide was hydramethylnon 2% which reduced wasp populations by 54% after 72 hours. Although fipronil was more effective, the potential of insects to develop resistance to consistent use of one product may suggest the need for alternating use of insecticides in some situations.
Although poison baiting can kill 80-100% of the colonies within a site invasion is extremely likely. Wasps have been recorded foraging up to 4 km from their nest. Even if the controlled site was very large, queen wasps which can fly 30-70 km to find suitable nesting sites are highly likely to invade the following spring.
Biological control has been used in attempts to achieve widespread control of wasps. Icheumonid parasitoids Sphecophaga vesparum vesparum, S.v.burra and Sphecophaga orientalis have been utilised as biological control agents for V. germanica. 
A recent study in Chile examined the pathogenicity of two entomopathogenic fungi, Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae. It was determined that two strains of B. bassiana were pathogenic for workers and males of V. germanica reaching high mortality and sporulation percentages.
Some other general factors that may need to be considered include: V. germanica constructs significantly larger nests in New Zealand (part of its introduced range) than it does in Europe; over-wintering of nests (i.e. re-using the same nest from one summer to the next) also occurs more frequently in New Zealand than in Europe. This suggests the wasp may be harder to control in areas of its introduced range.